Schlagwort: blockchain markets

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Bitcoin crash brings El Salvador’s BTC losses to over $61M

Bitcoin price fell below $20,000 on Saturday to see the USD value of El Salvador’ BTC holdings shrink from over $105 million to around $44 million.

El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in June 2021 and went on to buy its first BTC as a nation on 6 September.

That first purchase was for 200 bitcoins for $10,353, 812 at an average price of $51,769.06 per BTC. At the time of writing, that first purchase is down 63.03%, according to a portfolio tracker.

El Salvador bought more Bitcoin, utilizing dips to add to its holdings as BTC climbed to its peak in November. President Nayib Bukele also announced two more purchases in 2022, even as prices declined further off the peak.

El Salvador’s BTC holdings down 58% overall

The last purchase was on 9 May 2022, when El Salvador acquired 500 BTC for $15.3 million at an average cost of $30 744. In total, the country currently holds 2,301 bitcoins acquired at over $105 million for a dollar cost average of $45,908.42.

The value of the total holdings has fallen dramatically over this week, even as BTC/USD plummeted from $30k to $20k.

With Bitcoin price below $20,000, El Salvador’s BTC holdings are now worth about $44 million – down more than 58% overall and currently losing over $61.5 million.

Despite the huge loss, the country’s Finance Minister recently said the fiscal risk was “extremely minimal.”  

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MANA price jumps as Decentraland DAO votes to give Decentral Games $1M grant

As the crypto market ructions continue, cryptos with metaverse backup like Decentraland (MANA) have stood tall as others nosedive. MANA, for example, registered some gains today after Decentraland DAO voted in favor of giving Decentral Games (DG) a $1 million grant.

At the time of writing, MANA was trading at $0.8399, up 1.98%.

Decentraland approves DG request for grant

Decentraland metaverse platform DAO approved the proposal made by the DG last month to give them a $1 million grant to support its liquidity pool. However, this grant is more than four times higher as compared to the $240,000 community grant that is paid out in MANA. The DAO uses these grants to support projects that steer the growth of their platform.

According to the DG’s proposal, the grant will offer rewards to its ICE-USDC liquidity pool on QuickSwap. DG play-to-earn ICE Poker game, launched in October 2021, uses ICE token. For those staking USDC-ICE LP tokens, the MANA from the DAO will be distributed to the users for over three months.

Decentral Games CEO and Co-founder, Miles Anthony said:

“This MANA allocation is a stepping stone to assist in boosting our in-game economy as we prepare to launch ICE Poker Sit-n-Go tournaments, along with other key initiatives that drive organic demand and utility for ICE and solidify our ecosystem’s long-term sustainability.” 

DG impact on the Decentraland ecosystem

According to Decentraland, DG has been a key player in its ecosystem with the ICE Poker game accounting for about 60% of its active users weekly and over 8000 active players daily in 12 different decentral venues, besides it has bought thousands of Decentraland land packages.

DAO members voted in favor of the proposal

For the proposal to be approved, a total of 191 DAO members with more than 11 million Voting Power (VP) voted, with 151 members voting in favor of the proposal against the 40 who opposed it. Voting Power determines the winners however it has to be with over 6 million VP threshold and in this case, there was a 6,162,990 VP against 4,952,747 VP.

The VP is calculated based on the total of LAND, MANA, and NAMES that are linked with the Voter’s wallet. In this case, big holders can sway a vote where only 10 voters accounted for 81% VP. But the DG team also played a big role by casting 2 million to reach the VP threshold.

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Three Arrows Capital to seek bailout or asset sale

Kyle Davies, one of the co-founders of Three Arrows CAPITAL (3AC), has said that the crypto hedge fund is exploring different options including getting rescued by another firm or asset sales. This comes after some top crypto exchanges liquated the firm’s leveraged positions.

Three Arrows Capital has grown to become one of the largest crypto-focused hedge funds over the past few years. However, after the Terra (LUNA) debacle a month ago and the current crypto market meltdown, the firm has been undergoing difficult times.

Liquidation of 3AC positions

Bitmex, Deribit, and FTX crypto exchanges have already Liquidated Three Arrows Capital Leveraged Positions.

While the two co-founders of Three Arrows remained mum on the fate of the hedge fund, Davies opened up about the dire situation that the firm was facing during an interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

During the interview, Davies admitted that the firm had suffered losses following the collapse of the TerraUSD (UST) and Terra (LUNA), currently LUNA Classic. In particular, Three Arrow Capital along with others had participated in a $1 billion token sale conducted by the Luna Foundation Guard. Three Arrow Capital had invested $200 million in the token sale.

Davies said:

“The Terra-Luna situation caught us very much off guard.”

Besides the Terra (LUNA) debacle, the plummeting crypto prices are also hurting 2AC long crypto positions.

Addressing the situation, Davies said:

“This has pushed 3AC into looking for desperate options, including asset sale and a rescue by another firm.”

But he was quick to note that they are not the first to be affected by the current situation saying that many other firms have also been affected.

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Unusual liquidity pressures force Babel Finance to suspend withdrawals

Due to the ongoing crypto market meltdown, Babel Finance, an Asian-based crypto lender firm, has suspended all their products’ redemptions and withdrawals from clients, noting that their firm is facing ‘’Unusual liquidity pressure.’’

Today, June 17, Babel Finance wrote a notice on their official website to inform their customers of the decisions they are taking to protect them as the markets continue to trade sideways. It’s important to note that majority of the institutions in the crypto industry have been through conductive risk events.

The notice read:

‘’Recently, the crypto market has seen major fluctuations, and some institutions in the industry have experienced conductive risk events. Due to the current situation, Babel Finance is facing unusual liquidity pressures. We are in close communication with all related parties on the actions we are taking in order to best protect our customers. During this period, redemptions and withdrawals from Babel Finance products will be temporarily suspended, and resumption of normal service be notified separately. We apologize sincerely for any inconvenience caused.’’

DeFi platforms increasingly pausing withdrawals

With the plunging crypto markets, DeFi platforms seem to be resulting in pausing withdrawals with others like Celsius going as far as pausing swaps and internal transfers.

Yesterday, Finblox, a staking platform, also shared a tweet stating that they have restricted withdrawals from their platform to $1,500 per month from a limit of $500 per day as a result of its connection with the Three Arrows Capital (3AC).

Three Arrows Capital has found itself at the center of insolvency speculations following the deteriorating crypto prices. Today, the firm’s leveraged positions were liquidated by the three crypto exchanges namely FTX, BitMEX, and Deribit.

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MakerDAO reduces exposure to Celsius, disables Aave DAI supply

In a move to reduce exposure to the embattled Celsius Network, MakerDAO has voted to temporarily disable the Direct Deposit Module (D3M) of DAI for DeFi lending platform Aave. Aave users will not be able to access DAI loans on Aave using stETH as collateral through the Direct Deposit Module.

MakerDAO is the organization behind the DAI stablecoin.

Through a tweet made on Thursday, MakerDAO announced that its community members had voted to temporarily suspend Aave DAI Direct Deposit Module.

According to the tweet, the outcome of the vote was to be executed from June 17 2022 21:03 UTC.

Reducing Maker’s exposure to Celsius

The governance proposal to disable DAI supply on Aave was put forward earlier this week in an attempt to reduce Maker’s exposure to the besieged crypto lending platform Celsius.

According to the governance proposal, the Target Borrow Rate will be set to zero in the smart contract responsible for D3M thus preventing further borrowing by Celsius using Aave’s D3M.

Part of the proposal read:

“This change is being proposed to temporarily disable the Aave D3M. The Aave DAI Direct Deposit Module (D3M) Target Borrow Rate (bar) will be set to 0”

How the Direct Deposit Module (D3M) works

The Direct Deposit Module (D3M) is the one that allows interactions between the Maker ecosystem and other third-party lending pools including Aave. The main objective of the D3M is to maintain DAI’s interest rate across the lending pools, especially on Aave.

Currently, Aave has a total exposure of 200 million DAI tokens through the D3M. Out of that, 100 million DAI tokens are borrowed by Celsius using stETH (a representation of ETH staked with Lido) collateral.

Celsius relationship with stETH

Celsius earlier this week indefinitely paused withdrawals, swaps, and transfers amid growing concerns about the crypto lender exposure to stETH. There was growing uncertainty on stETH due to the upcoming Ethereum merge that made stETH to lose its peg against ETH.

As a result, there was very heavy selling pressure on the stETH putting Celsius in a precarious position since it had locked customer funds into stETH.

If the worst comes to the worst and Celsius becomes insolvent and faces a margin call, it would be forced to dump its stETH; something that would cause the stETH to de-peg further from ETH. This would mean the 100 million DAI tokens that MakerDAO had lent to Celsius would become irrecoverable.

To protect their lending power and prevent Celsius from borrowing more DAI tokens using stETH as collateral, MakerDAO has voted to temporarily disable the D3M.

According to a proposal referred to as “proposal 83, following the disabling of D3M, Aave is also considering freezing stETH and its use as collateral on the platform.

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